Bill Pack began officiating high school football games in central Tennessee in the year 1939 and except for a three-year stint in the armed forces, refereed until his retirement in 1991! That’s an astonishing forty-nine years of high school officiating. A member of the National High School Sports Hall of Fame, Pack also officiated basketball from 1945 to 1961 and put in many years of baseball officiating for the TSSAA. The first official to receive the TSSAA Distinguished Service Award, Pack was the only referee to have worked playoff games every year since they began in 1969. He organized the Central Tennessee Football Officials Association in 1947 and served as its commissioner and assigning officer for forty-five years. At the collegiate level, Pack officiated for more than thirty years in the Ohio Valley Conference. He was still active in 1993 as president of the National Federation of Interscholastic Officials Association, an organization that boasts a membership of 172,000 coaches and officials. Pack passed on the officiating gene to his four sons, and in 1976 they became the first family in the U.S. ever to work a game as a complete crew. Bill Pack died in 1994 at the age of seventy-five, leaving a legacy of remarkable longevity and excellence in the officiating profession.
